Dwarkesh Patel’s Quest to Learn Everything - Ep. 27

how is AI integrated into your work in

your life right now I'm a host of a

podcast where I try to ask good

questions my upcoming guest is a

geneticist and I just upload the UB of

the file then I'll just have a bunch of

chats where I'm like how does he explain

what groups made up modern Europeans it

has all the context in there that's that

ends up being incredibly useful the

first thing I do is just what are the

key ideas and Concepts I really need to

understand it's given me a bunch of

question answer pairs that consolidate

the key things I need to understand

about this post so a lot of topics I

just find I have a vague sense of what's

happening but I don't really like get it

and it's super helpful to chat with

Claude to make sure I'm on the right

track wait step back why is this

necessary what's going on how do I think

about the broader context of what's

Happening here because I really can't

ask good questions unless I have a good

mental model of what they're talking

about where all this is fits together I

have come up with a couple of different

workflows and tools that help me really

interrogate and make sure I've

reinforced what I'm reading about or

learning and the language model is very

helpful cuz like it gives you the

content in another context it can quiz

you if you want I really just want to

know

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the show notes and now on to the show D

cases welcome to the show thanks for

having me Dan I'm so excited to have you

for people who don't know you I assume

everyone knows you but for people who

don't um you do the best most like

honestly the smartest interviews in AI

that I've found um you have like really

incredible guests like Mark Zuckerberg

Demis cabus Patrick hson um you you

you've created like the go-to show for

smart people to to learn about AI but

you also kind of Branch out into lots of

other things like geopolitics and

history and stuff like that it's it's

really great and you're like you're just

one of the one of the people that

inspire me to like make smart content so

I appreciate you coming on on the show

yeah that's very kind of you to say I

mean um I've uh I've always been sort of

trying to make have the conversations

that I would like to have if I was

getting dinner with one of these

professors or CEOs what would I want to

ask them and um I'm I'm glad other

people enjoy them as well yeah it comes

through um and I I think like it's it's

really fun to get to like turn turn the

tables on you a little bit because uh

you've done some interviews but but

mostly you're interviewing other people

and I think um like it's probably on

people's minds like how you use AI in

your work in into your life and so and

so that's what we're going to talk about

today so um maybe just start start by

giving us a little bit of an overview

like um how is AI integrated into your

work and in your life right now yeah so

it's actually changed a lot I remember a

year ago this was after I think it was

after gp4 um I somebody asked me you

know do you use AI to help you with your

research or prep and I was like not at

all it's completely useless in mid it

gives you these vile um you ask it like

what should I ask so it's a professor

and it'll give you these Bal where did

you grow up what's your book about

whatever so initially it was you know um

terrible I think recently the models

have gotten to just the point where with

these like I don't know 40 or especially

with the cloud new Cloud models they're

intelligent and interrogative and can

consider the context which you provide

to them and so they're still not that

good at like what should I ask this

person because obviously that's why I

have a job right so I can come with the

questions but for the research itself

where you're for me at least I try to

like ingest everything they've ever

written um all the rebuttal to their

ideas all the other considerations and

there's often a lot involved especially

given there's like many different fields

I try to go deep into like the last

interview I just did was with Dylan

Patel who writes semi analysis it's a um

it's a publication about semiconductors

and AI hardware and so on so like

there's a bunch you have to learn and uh

it's I mean I can go through my workflow

but it's incredibly useful to be able to

like have this thing where I'm like

what's going on here can you help me

explain this and then I guess one bigger

thing I've been thinking about is ever

since I interviewed Andy matusak if you

if your audience is familiar he's the

guy who did um who talks a lot about how

space repetition and other tools can

enhance our ability to learn and how the

normal mode of learning you're actually

not picking up that much if you pick up

a random book and start reading you're

not getting that much out of it and I

really

have found that to very much to be the

case to the extent that if I'm just like

casually reading a book I think I'm

basically wasting time or entertaining

myself and I have come up with a couple

of um different workflows and tools that

help me really interrogate and make sure

I've reinforced what I'm reading about

or learning and the a tool like and

language model is very helpful because

like it gives it it gives you the cont

um the content in another context and

you can like it makes it can quiz you if

you want so it's it's super helpful that

kind of stuff that's really cool I think

we should start I want to start back to

front like with the the stuff you're

using to read because I think the

reading all that reading is sort of the

input like one of the inputs to the

interviews and then we'll get into the

interviews um and I'm really excited for

both so so let's start with with using

AI to read and to learn the um you know

so as I was talking about like the what

one of the main things I think is

important is if I'm studying a topic

over the course of a few week

it's um especially if it's a difficult

topic it's like new to me it's

incredibly important that I've I'm not

just casually reading because if you

just casually reading it's like every

day you reread the same key terms the

same Concepts and you're you start over

from scratch um so one of the things I

like to do for example I was recently

ining Dylan right so if I go to his

publication semi analysis there just a

ton of lingo and things you have to

understand um so the new one was pretty

interesting it's talking about why

nobody has built a huge training cluster

yet and then first thing I do is just

like what are the key ideas and Concepts

I really need to understand so I made

myself um a hugging face space you

honestly don't need to do anything like

this you can just it's pretty simple to

have Claude build your hugging face

space or if you prefer what it literally

does is like apply this prompt to

everything I paste in so just you can

you just copy paste that prompt into CLA

yourself but basically just has u i copy

pasted some of the things in Andy

matouk's post about how to write good

prompts and I just asked CLA to make

those prompts for me space repetition

prompts so um when I do this hopefully

in a few seconds we'll get something

back um initially this will give just

give me some ideas of like what are the

key ideas here I need to understand

so

um super useful right I can even zoom in

a little bit so it's more helpful um so

for for the audience who's listening

like it's given me a bunch of question

answer pairs that consolidate the key

things I need to understand about this

post about um you know we can go through

the specifics here I'm sure the the

actual specifics of AI Hardware were

more people but um a lot of the things

where it's like okay if you don't get

this you've like totally missed the boat

here and so you can start with something

like this I add it to my space

repetition app um or I can just look

through this and I'm getting a sense of

like oh okay here's what it would take

to train a gbd4 level model on 100,000

h100 cluster what are the three main

types of parallelism you need to use to

train on a big cluster or whatever and

this is for a technical post on other

kinds of posts there might be different

kinds of cards that come up for history

it might be a different kind of thing

for philosophy it might be a different

kind of thing so this gives me a lay of

the land I love this this is super

interesting like I feel like I can go in

like a bunch of different directions but

what where I want to start is like um

how are you reading and when are you

reading so is this like are you using

this specifically for um uh for reading

that you're doing for the show or you're

just doing this for any reading that

you're doing that you feel like is

serious you really want to learn um both

so just this weekend I was reading um I

forgot the author's name but it's a book

called medieval technology and social

change and it's about how different

things that were developed through um

the last 1,00 to 500 years Technologies

like the steer UPS how they affected

society and it's like you can it's

entertaining you can read it and

then one of the things is like okay did

I really understand what's going on here

um with the relationship he's trying to

elucidate so afterwards in fact I have

some claw chats where I was just going

through um while I was reading it um

let's see if this recollects do it I I

want to know I'm I'm on the edge of my

seat because I have this book it's like

sitting on the desk in front of me um

and so I want to know what what you got

out of it okay so um first I just asked

it to make some B repetition prompts for

me first of all I was just like I read

the chapter I'm not sure I got it so

just explain to me the chapter about how

he says that stups

created feudalism like what exactly was

a connection here so it it's a much more

condensed like here's what's going on

here basically if you understand this

it's a useful scaffold so that when

you're reading the rest of the chapter

you understand where the pieces fit

together have you tried like one one of

the things that's that I've tried with

this is like cuz sometimes it doesn't

know especially for a book like that

where it's like not that popular have

you tried like one one of the things I

do is create a little CLA project and

then upload the text if I can find it

have you tried that in fact let me just

AI uh

projects so if I go

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to um I literally just saw like I'm I'm

a host of a podcast where I try to ask

good questions my upcoming guest is a

geneticist and I just upload the I did

the UB of the file I convert the UB to a

text using an online converter I upload

it to project knowledge then I I've only

just started prepping for this guest but

I'll just have a bunch of chats where

I'm like um you know how how does he

explain what groups made up modern

Europeans it has all the context in

there that's that ends up being

incredibly useful like you were saying

yeah that's so cool I I I love that I

love that feature okay wait let's go

back to let's go back to stirups and uh

in this chat you're having with uh um uh

with this book or about the book yeah so

you know it explains that the reason

stups should create a feudalism is

because you needed um you needed a lot

of land basically to support the kinds

of people who become heavy Cavalry the

knights the knights need a lot of land

in order to um have the income to have

you know like uh armor and uh lances and

other kinds of equipment and to train

themselves um but you a knight is only

possible if you have a sterup against

which you can brace yourself as you're

attacking with a sword because otherwise

you're just like a Mongol who's shooting

bows and arrows so um but then then

there's a bunch of stuff that's

confusing here like uh why is it that

expensive to have be a knight that you

need to like completely confiscate

Church lands in order to subsidize this

night lifestyle um and then on these

kinds of questions the author is dead

but it's just like I'm just like murky

about it I don't know what's going on so

I can just um these kinds of things I

can the book didn't even talk about

right but I can always just continue the

conversation with Claude and have it

explain what's going on um and so this

is just like a recreational reading that

Claud ends up being super helpful with I

think that's really interesting what

what do you think about um like books

like this like in your you know as as a

person who likes history a lot books

that sort of single out like a specific

thing like the Stirrup and then are like

well you can trace all this stuff to

that like one thing where it like makes

so much sense but then there are things

like I don't know like Guns Germs and

Steel where like Jared Diamond had that

whole thesis about I can't remember the

exact thing but it's like people in

warmer climates or I can't remember the

exact but it turned out to be like

totally wrong yeah how do you feel about

things like that

yeah so my opinion on these kinds of

books

there's there's one I mean the sort of

concise answer is like yeah there's ones

that do it poorly but just don't read

the ones that do it poorly or something

there is a failure mode for public

intellectuals where they initially start

off with a discipline and they do some

exemplary work there and then they write

an initial broad book that's about how

this idea explains a lot of the world

and it does incredibly well and now

they're in like public intellectual mode

and now that the next book has to be

like cures my theor everything and it

just not that satisfying so I do worry

about those kinds of things but um

presumably the reason I don't know I'm

not into like reading 500 page books

about like uh Ju Just how the ster up

physically worked like what's the point

of that right I do want to understand

the applications and maybe they're wrong

but

um I mean what else are we trying to do

here right do we just care about maybe

you just intrinsically care about how

the ster physically works there I I I

will point out a couple of examples so

there there's a lot of interesting

topics where you really can't get at the

heart of the matter without just

considering the whole story and in fact

so a couple of biographies especially

stand out in this way where if you look

at koo's biography of LBJ or cod's

biography of Stalin it's basically a

history of this 20th century or in the

case of codin even before the 20th

century um I think this Koo books on LBJ

start off with the Candi raay

on uh Frontier settlers in the mid 19th

century or something and it goes through

Rural Life in Texas why electrification

was such a big deal a whole bunch of

other things right now um so it's

basically history of the 20th century

but it has a very specific point of view

or a specific Locus a character that's

moving the story along and I find those

to be incredibly helpful in getting a

full picture of what's going on in an

era um there's a couple other books

where they really aren't trying to write

a theory of everything like I don't

think car's trying to write about like

what is the history of the 20th century

but they just can't help themselves they

feel like you really cannot understand

the very specific topic I care about

unless I tell you everything about

everything you know like um codin story

uh biography of Stalin starts with the

like bismar career as a military General

and how that changed the way that

different Power thought about um

colonialism and the need to modernize

and that's where it starts WR in a

biography of Stalin so uh yeah I I love

those kinds of books I think there's

like a very just deep point about the

universe being interconnected there but

there's also like a really interesting

point for um people who want to make

stuff like make writing or make podcasts

or whatever because like there's this

deep fear that everyone has about like

being pigeon hold and it's like well if

I pick this like really specific topic I

won't be able to like bring all of

myself to it or I won't I won't be able

to be like multifaceted and it's like no

no no if you just pick one guy Lyndon

Johnson and really get deep into him you

have to explain everything else about

the world in order to explain him and I

I love that and like as a Creator myself

like that's the thing that I think about

when I'm like oh maybe I'm getting too

narrow here it's like no no the narrow

is actually good you can find the entire

universe in the narrow yes yeah yeah

yeah I I couldn't have said it better

yeah um okay so so basically what I'm

what I'm seeing right now is you're

using Claud when you're reading books

that you care about you care about like

learning from and you're using it a

little bit to like prepare your prepare

the mind your mind for like what you're

about to read which I think is

particularly good for like difficult

books or for like thinking through a

particular argument before you like go

through it you're asking questions

you're asking questions so you're kind

of like it's a reading companion you're

getting more out of the books you read

from that but then you kind of take take

your what you've read and throw it into

this um this uh card

generator yeah and so that that's um

mostly it's just chatting with Claude

And so let me see if I can find a better

example um so I I mean a lot of topics I

just find um I've I've have a vague

sense of what's happening but I don't

really like get it and it's super

helpful to chat with Claude to make sure

I'm on the right track I one was like um

there you know Dylan has a couple of

posts about how why packing is a

technology super uh necessary for these

Advanced ships I'm not trying to make

this podcast body at Hardware it just

happens to be the last podcast I did so

that's what you're getting but um then

I'm I was it's like a confusing it's

like five serious post about how

advanced packing works and how you know

what what the technical specifications

are and I'm like wait step back what

what why is this necessary what's going

on um all kinds of other questions about

when there's questions about

how I'm worried about we I might get too

deep in the weeds when I'm just

explaining yeah basically I'm just like

how how do I think about the broader

context of what's Happening here because

I really can't ask good questions unless

I have a good mental model of um what

they're talking about like I really get

where all this is fits together that

makes sense and so and and and so CLA is

kind of like the first thing you flip to

when when you when you want to know that

are you using it on mobile or using it

on desktop desktop okay interesting so

you're doing most of your like reading

and research stuff on desktop yeah

that's right H and what do you think

about like uh just Claude being really

great right now and like chat like I

assume your chbt us to just lower than

it used to

be yeah I think these things will keep

getting better over time

and I um I I you know I I I yeah I I

think just like getting in the practice

of using these tools I'll talk a little

bit about how these tools relate to my

post- production process initially it

was kind of useless I but I did spend a

few weekends trying to write a few

prompts and create a workflow

at the time it was basically useless now

it's actually ended up being useful and

I can use the same you know Jupiter

notebooks or whatever to get things done

so um it is worth investing in getting

even if they don't work perfectly now to

get them part of your workflow so that

as they keep getting better you're

getting the returns from that yeah that

makes sense so so I want to just go back

to the uh the flat the the the eny card

generator the the space repetition card

generator so as part of this once you

once you've done all the sort of like

conceptual um

uh you know clearing the ground

conceptually for yourself to like kind

of understand the the basics of of what

a guest is talking about or an idea that

you're interested in then you're kind of

um you're adding to your your flash card

so that I I guess so that it you retain

the information past even when you talk

to that guest is that

right yes that's right um I mean I I

think of the larger mission of the

podcast is to cons why does a podcast

get better over time and it's because

basically I'm getting smarter or

learning more things I'm

reducing my ignorance around a bunch of

topics and so to if I don't do that I

mean I think about all the episodes I

did before I interviewed Andy and

started using space repetition and I

just like really regret it because I

talked to all these World experts in a

ton of different domains and to be

honest like in many cases I didn't take

that much away I vaguely remember some

things and now that I use I can walk you

through the kinds of cars I make and the

space operation tools I use but it's

like totally a game Cher in terms of

what I can retain and in fact think it's

not even about making sure I remember

what I discussed in a previous episode

or what I learned previously it's more

about future learning because I'm sure

you've heard the saying about um the uh

you know a learning compounds because

you can use what you've learned in the

past to um learn future things because

they all interconnect well you can't do

that if you basically forgotten most

things you've learned in the past so I

my learning has for future other things

has become much faster because I have

cached all these different

um Concepts and figures and facts so but

future things are just like I I

understand how everything sits together

much more it's not even about the past

it's really about future learning can we

see your uh I don't know what what you

use for for space repetitions can we see

your your deck y i i will point out by

the way as a side notes one one use case

of claw that end up actually being

pretty useful you sometimes read obscure

Phil like I was reading Nick Lan's

selected writings about Ai and his

accelerationism and I was like what's

going on like I genuinely I'm like what

is his argument basically like why does

he think that the AI takeover and the

whatever thing it creates in the

aftermath will be goo because he's a

smart guy I'm assuming he has an

interesting argument so I upload the PDF

of his selected writings I just ask

Claud like okay so why does he think

it's a good thing that AI take over

humans any they it offers a summary like

initially this isn't necessarily that

helpful because I kind of did read this

in the essay but what's what's helpful

is that when you go through and I'm like

I respond like I don't get it like what

is he think is wrong with human society

that you can't uh you have to erase it

and then it gives the explanation and

I'm like I still don't get it like what

exactly you're talking about here and

then like here's what I do with the

podcast right I have the guest on and I

ask them what do you mean here like I I

disagree here's a contradiction whatever

and going through their writings with

Claude and like have I have actually

found a sort of blind spot in their

thinking or is this just me being

confused about their ideas is super

helpful that's that is really

interesting it's like um you can you can

get you can get down to a deeper level

before you talk to them so that you can

start there with them as opposed to like

starting at the surface exactly which is

really cool I I use that too for like um

for for difficult books like not

necessarily for like interviewing the

author of those books but like for

example I interviewed Reed Hoffman like

I don't know a month ago and I wanted to

talk to him about the kind of like

intersection between philosophy and Ai

and he was like um he like uh almost

became a philosophy Professor like at

Oxford wanted like was really deep into

Vicken Stein so like I read a bunch of

Vicken Stein um which I hadn't read in a

while and I I just used Claude for it

and it was like so much better um

because I like I haven't taken a Vicken

Stein class or maybe I took one in

college like a long time ago but I've

read him a lot and just there are always

those points in those kinds of books

where you're like I think I I know what

they're saying but like I'd probably

have to go to a a grad graduate school

and like get a masters in this to like

really know and Claud is actually like

makes me be like oh I don't need that

anymore like I I any book I want to read

like this like I basically know and it

just helped me so much in that in that

interview because I could just ask read

like really deep Vicken Stein related

questions and he could answer them yep

yep I I think that's totally legitimate

I think some people would be like oh you

need to read it in the original blah

blah blah I think if you care about the

ideas and you think the ideas are

Timeless and not the ideas are not about

the specific kind of Pros that the

original author used but just generally

like what is the essence and the gist of

what's Happening Here If you care about

the ideas and I think this is totally

valid right I I don't just agree with

the people who are like no you need to

read like the specific syllables that

wienstein used yeah I mean I'm also just

saying like I'm I have the book open and

then I just take one of his like

statements and just throw it in there

and then it's like here's here's what it

it means or whatever which which I think

is really great um okay so you're going

to you're going to show us the uh the

the space repetition card so what what

app is this this is mochi um it's like

gki but I this is the one I use um why

uh so that actually I don't have any

cards today because I just went through

them this morning but let me give you a

sense of let me give you a sense of what

kinds of things I have right so yeah I

have um if you go through history

recently I've been planning on

interviewing David Reich who is a

geneticist who explores human Origins

and these are especially cases where

just like reading the book I'm like I

would have totally forgotten he names

all these different ancestral groups and

how they combined and in what eras you

know when did the Y people come through

Europe when did the Anatolian hunor

gatherers you know wash over uh Eurasia

all these things I was just like you

read it in one year goes out the other

one unless you make cards for it and so

I made a ton of cards about this kind of

stuff um

um and you know so there's examples of

that here it's especially useful for

hardware and um technical things

so here I feel like if I don't make

cards I'm just constantly relearning the

same things because I didn't learn the

lingo the in the right way first it's

not just about learning the terminology

it's about understanding the underlying

Concepts let me give you a good example

of that so um maybe I I'll sit back and

I'll explain like I go through these

cards in the morning if I maybe you can

see what it kind of looks like if I the

cram cards thing um I can go through

them and right now I'm like I remembered

this right I remember it's U this is the

first one that came up randomly but it's

um

multi quy uh attention to not have to

use KV huge KV values and then sharing

KV values between layers and using local

attention and that's the answer now um

it seems sort of trivial right now

because it's just like three things but

like I would have totally forgotten

about this if I hadn't made a card for

this as soon as I read the blog post and

then it just like I wasted my time in

the future if I'm learning about these

Technologies in a different context I

just like don't have the connection to

what was happening here to connect it to

right if I go to a different um category

if I go crme cards um this is the the

white thing I would have totally

forgotten about it if I hadn't made

these cards um I yeah I I'm just a big

fan right now I sort of become a space

repetition Fanboy these days how do you

think about like the the usefulness of

space repetition in a world where like

any of these questions is possibly is

like pretty much answerable like with

Claud with like a you know one one

search yes so I think it's about not

necessarily remembering this information

but when a future thing comes in you

understand like the conceptual in fact

let me give you a good example of this

right so I

remember sometimes I actually make cards

about facts that I don't even understand

in the moment but in the future the as I

learn more about the field the as a as a

sort of territory becomes more clear the

things I said in the card make more

sense to me so if I um I was reading

some of Colin Burns papers and so I made

this card about like why Colin Burns

thinks that uh alignment is a tractable

problem or understanding what model

things is a tractable problem and um at

the time I wrote things down about like

uh you know features are in a linear

space what the what does that mean um or

like we can sort of see features in

other sorts of categories and at the

time I'm like I have no idea what this

means I'm just going to write it down

because I read the blog post and there

was no point of reading the blog post if

I'm not going to make the card later on

as I learned more about how the residual

stream model of how attention works you

know how what that is and so forth this

card made much more sense to me in the

future but I would have just like

totally memory hold or not even memory

hold I would totally forgotten this

content which required future

understanding if I hadn't made a card of

it and then when I see the card again in

the future I'm like oh this is what

Colin Burns meant now that I understand

how attention works this is what it

means right um

yeah this is this is really interesting

to me so I want to get into some of the

like the ways that you use AI for for

interview prep um because I think we

we've mostly covered the reading stuff

but before we do that I just want to

like understand like what is driving all

of this like it feels like you are just

consuming massive amounts of information

and turning that into knowledge in your

head like you have this in sort of just

overdrive of curiosity which I actually

resonate with a lot like I'm I'm

surrounded right now by books um and I'm

just sort of like um curious for you

what what that what do you think that's

about I think I um I've uh I I I I

really just want to know everything

right it's I I don't know how to express

it there's a beautiful passage in a will

Durant book as he's turning 90 where

he's writing a memoir basically of his

main ideas um called fallen leaves and

there's a passage on philosophy where he

says you know as as you get older maybe

with all the philosophy and history I've

done I can I've reached some plateau of

higher understanding and clearer insight

or at least I've understood that such a

thing is possible

and something like that just resonates

with me I don't know I just like I find

that idea really appealing I'm nowhere

close to it but I just hopefully in the

years to come that'll just be a thing

that um I also really admire people I've

had on the podcast who do have these

self-consistent and really deeply

interrogated World models you know I've

interviewed these guests and some of

them um people a couple names come to

mind people like Carl scholman or Tyler

Cowen or burn Hobart they it feels like

they've really read everything and you

know everything you know is a subset of

what they know and I just um I I I find

them to be super compelling as thinkers

of course there's many things they can

still be wrong about it I don't I'm not

one of these people bu like there's like

a thing where you just know everything

and you can never be wrong right you

always have blind spots but the abil

their ability to which you can see when

you talk to them to connect anything you

ask them about and they're like claw six

in the sense of like you start talking

about why has a fraction of Finance as a

percent of GDP I remember asking Tyler

this and he has a right off the cuff

just a super interesting answer that

connects a bunch of different

disciplines um you ask Carl about like

how fast um AI Hardware could grow and

just like done the sort of firmy

estimates on how fast algae bloom and

how much solar power they consume and um

how many Fab csmcs make it just like I I

I I find the that sort of compression of

the input they've ingested over their

lives and they can not only do they know

that stuff but they can really connect

it in a really interesting and

compelling novel way I I I I find it

super compelling and and in terms of

developing your own world view like do

you have that anywhere where it's like

you're creating like some sort of living

document or is it just is just all on

your head like all the stuff that you're

learning obviously you have the you have

the cards but that feels like more like

um dots in the space rather than like uh

the ways that they all connect and and

how you think about everything all

together as a

system I think um I've been trying to do

more of this recently uh and now that

I've sort of built up an underlying

maybe vocabulary or understanding

because of the podcast it makes sense to

do more of this something I've been

doing recently if I let me pull this up

I've only just started hopefully

there'll be more by the time people are

looking at this but um I've started

writing you know riffs on different

books or things I read and if I go to to

um it's basically on my website and um

so just like I can read a book and I

have questions or I connect it with

other things I've read I I remember for

example in when I was in Stephen

pinker's language Instinct he was

writing the book before the fox P2 Gene

that can help explain human uh language

was found and so he has all these

observations that are then later

explained by the fox P2 Gene um and so I

can just sort of the sort of connection

that you're talking about I can do by

riffing on other people's ideas I

actually am curious do you have

suggestions on what I should be doing

maybe I should be writing more blog post

or what do you suggest I should

do um well that's that's a good question

so uh well before we get there like one

of the things that this reminds me of I

think Cod is so good for reading old

science books because it can tell you

what's outdated and what's what's not um

I do that all the time and I I love that

I love that little thing but yeah I mean

I think basically like developing a

worldview is like you have to just

try you know um and you try over and

over and over again and I I do think

like blog puss are uh really good for

that especially like you know for me

like I have to write every week um and

so I'm like forced to take a view on

something and generally if you're like

intellectually honest you like want one

post to like somewhat like agree with

the last post and your audience will

call you out if you're like just

disagreeing with yourself all the

time um so you're kind of developing a

worldview that way but for me like right

now I'm actually like my big thing this

um this quarter is like I I just have

these like ideas that are simmering that

are like sort of the relationship

between like um language models and like

some deep philosophical questions that

we've been like talking about since like

Playdoh which is like the appearance

reality distinction and like how do we

know what's true and what's knowledge

and all that kind of stuff like I think

there's a lot of overlap there and it

requires like it's going to be like a

10,000w post or something like that um

and so what I'm doing is I just have

like a Claud project with like I have

all these like little notes and riffs

and like and stuff and I'm just like

going into CLA and being like hey

like what's what's the thread here like

what's going on can you help me like

figure out like there's something in me

that I have all these little ideas for

but I can't quite like put it into an

argument that all makes sense and I

think just honestly like sitting with

that for like a couple months I will I

will know what's in there but there's

something in there um and yeah it's cool

do do you make a claw project to like

here some the things I'm thinking how do

they connect or like how do you keep

track of those things as over those

months exactly I I mean I'll just show

it to you um uh let's let me just pull

it up so okay so if I go into

Claud um I have a couple different

projects um one project is seeing like a

language model which is the title of

this big post whatever it is another Zen

In The Art of MOT motorc so this is like

a book that I'm reading as prep for this

um this piece that I'm writing um I've

read it a bunch of times before but like

now I'm like doing a little bit of a

deeper read and so I have like the I

have the uh the whole book uploaded and

then I can like ask questions then I

have another one that I love called my

psychology which has a bunch of like

journal entries uh goals I've set for

myself um over the years and then also

like things I've observed about my

psychology are things I'm working on

like little aspects of myself that like

to grow or change and so when I'm making

decisions or thinking something through

I just go in there and it can reference

all that stuff so it knows who I am uh

which is really cool um so in seeing

like a language model let me see if I

can pull it up in the projects uh

directory um so I have like basically I

have this one note in Apple notes which

is like uh every time I have a little

thing com into my head I'm like I just I

just put it in there like let me see if

I can find it for you um

um I just throw it in here and this is

like huge and messy and it's like

different quotes from different books

and like just different ideas that like

come to me off the top of my head as I'm

like walking around and I think that

there's like a thread here in all of

this stuff um they're all like I can see

how they're all related but but like I

can't quite pull it out and so like what

I've been doing is I just like throw it

all throw it all in in here we have uh

we have this like all the all the quotes

and all the ideas and fragments I have a

little bit of a draft like an intro and

then I have a chapter of a book um uh by

Richard Ry that I think is is is really

good um called pragmatism as

anti-authoritarianism that like kind of

sparked this whole thing like I read

that I read an art I read a a chapter of

that book and then I was like suddenly

like rereading like a bunch of Plato and

like Aristotle and like I was just down

this huge rabbit hole and so um like

what I did for example is I put all that

stuff in here and I was like hey I have

a a bunch of notes and some fragments

for of text for a long 10,000 is word

piece I want to write called seeing like

a language model but I need to

understand what I actually think and

make a bit of an outline before I get

started in order to do that I need to

understand the patterns of what I've

been thinking and writing down and

reading about can you suggest some ways

that you can help me do this I want to

get from where I am to an outline you

have access to some fragments noce an

early unfinished intro and it just like

has a bunch of ideas like thematic

analysis or argument mapping or

chronological development and I'm just

like sort of going down the rabbit hole

with it where it's like um you know I

asked it to do concept clustering so

it's like you know one of the concepts

that I'm playing with is the

philosophical divide Plato versus

Aristotle which I think is like not

quite right it's actually Plato versus

the sophists but like it's it's it's

close or the evolution of Western

thought it's like how does Plato like um

uh uh how does Plato lad up into the

rest of Western thought and and into

into science and into just the way the

Western mind works um and then how how

do language models sort of like differ

from that from that um paradigm um so

that that's the that's the basic thing

that I'm trying for because I I I I do

have the reason I ask this question is

because I'm selfishly like I feel like a

little bit I haven't done the like big

idea thing as much as I really want to

because I'm I am writing every week I am

sort of like reacting to stuff and so I

want to be a little bit more thoughtful

um and this is this is my like attempt

to like to put all of it together into

something that like makes sense yeah you

know as you're going through this this

really actually makes me want to write

more because now that you're talking

about it now that you ask a question I'm

like yeah I I should be sort of

consolidating the things I'm learning in

a more comprehensive way and in a way

that's also more useful and accessible

to other people as well right I you know

I spend weeks like learning about some

random what not random but like the

things I care about I'm about to prepare

for Daniel Jorgen the guy who wrote The

Prize it's a history of oil or a

geneticist um you know AI researcher or

whatever to the extent that I'm getting

out of these research processes I should

consolidate it in a way that's not

evident in the podcast itself yeah I

mean I I selfishly want you to do that

because I'm curious what you think yeah

I appreciate that you will send this out

through your newsletter right is is that

the main way yeah yeah yeah this will

this will go out through through newsl I

might do something special for it like

um you know maybe maybe we'll make a

little mini site for it when it when it

launches but that's sort of in the

future I have to actually I have to

actually write it first um so okay so so

so let's I want to move on I want I want

to talk about the uh how how you use AI

to to sort of like do do the interview

prep um so so let's let's move into that

and then we can also

um uh we can also U maybe even like prep

for an interview together yeah yep okay

let's do it um I honestly the interview

prep is like it requires a lot of work

but fundamentally what's happening is

not that complicated like I can just

show you a document I might have made in

the past share my screen so honestly it

literally is just like I'm going through

I come up with a bunch of questions and

I sort of group them together in uh

relevant categories if I go to um if was

interviewing Dylan Patel I'm sorry this

is not the right one

um just like a bunch of different yeah

just like a list of questions basically

it's not that complicated but the

process of coming up up with them is you

know very research intensive so we can

go through like if I'm guess I'm like

only barely started preparing for them

we can go through the process preparing

for them yeah can can we can we I just

want to stop at those questions like

again selfishly cuz I think it's really

interesting like you have these like

long lists of questions that are

organized by theme are you like going

down the list or are you sort of jumping

around it's really interesting because

um I come up with these list of

questions but it's like it really never

ends up being I ask question one and I

ask question two and I ask question

three the it I you know I start off with

an interesting question and if you

listen to the interviews hopefully it

comes off more as a almost conversation

because I spend so much time preparing

that I have these questions basically

memorized and so the next one that is

appropriate to their response if they

say something about um you know

memorization in llms I'll have a

question prepared about that or related

to that and I'll I'll just ask it next

because that's what fits in together and

so you know I'll have a list and this is

what I'll send them if they ask for it

but like really just sort of me off the

cuff like here's here's a question I

remember that was relevant to this in

the actual interview that makes sense so

like the the point of the dock is like

it's almost like writing the doc is is

the prep itself and it's you don't even

necessarily need it in the interview

like maybe you have it just in case but

yeah that makes a lot of sense yeah um

and then yeah we can even go through

let's see um I'm doing a couple of

interviews in the future uh David Reich

and David Reich and Daniel Jorgen so the

one the first former is a geneticist uh

with about human Origins the second

wrote the prize which is the you know

the famous book about the history of oil

which one sounds more interesting to you

we can do that whichever one uh I want

to I want to do the famous

geneticists so let's go to Claud in fact

I I I do have his book uploaded as a

project so we can just use that that's

great and so basically what we're going

to do is like we're gonna we're gonna

watch you and I'll I'll do it with you

we're going to prep for an interview uh

with this guy what's his name again um

David Reich David Reich okay cool can we

get like a little bit of background on

David Reich like maybe we can even ask

Claude because like I'm you know

obviously I'm a newbie to David reich's

work I don't know he is a geneticist at

Harvard and over the last decade or so

their Research into how have human

populations across the world been formed

basically like how do the who are the

Europeans what groups make them up what

ancient migrations and genocides and

population Replacements made them same

with the Indians or Native Americans or

Africans um it's completely changed uh I

mean they've basically sort of like made

many academic disciplines are relevant

because they actually have empirical

data on like here's actually what

historically happened you guys are

completely wrong about what you think

your theories of what happened um if

you're familiar with na min's challenge

you know like you you have these like

burth up squirrels but with some

Advanced Techniques you can get some

useful information out of them I feel

it's in a similar vein obviously they're

not the same kind of project but like

it's a similar vein of like once we

develop the advanced mathematics or

genetics or whatever to understand

what's in the genome um we've like we've

just uncovered a ton of insight about

what's been going on in human history

basically and um sorry I'm just going

getting nerd sniped and just going on

riffs here but like one of the

interesting things is uh you can see

when one population replaces another

whether it was just like oh we met and

like we were like now inter migl and

trading and whatever or is it like we're

committing genocide against you and you

can tell that because if in the case

where it's genocide or replacement will

be that the um the male line of the

population that is invading will um

overtake the uh male line of the

existing population but the female line

will remain so mitochondrial DNA is only

comes up in the female line and you'll

see like the female line because they're

getting you know like uh the the new men

who are coming in are taking them as

wives or something and then anyway so

you can just like learn a lot about like

what kind of invasion was it did they

like conquer or was they were they just

like like mingling or something um one

of the many things you can see from the

DNA that's really

interesting wait and so so this is like

basically reexamining DNA evidence of

like old settlements and like basically

and and he's

uncovering new ways of being able to

analyze a DNA like what's the what's the

what's the new methods that they're

using to like draw new conclusions from

existing EV one of them is just that

right like seeing how the Y chromosone

and the U mitochondrial DNA cuz like you

can just learn a lot about population B

on how the female versus m male line is

propagated about like what was the

social structure like and so forth

another is you can even tell the level

of inequality in a society because if

there's a lot so for example in India um

one of the things that was super

surprising is that the the amount of

endogamy which is to say that the um a

certain cast in a certain Village would

just like not there wouldn't be any sort

of intermixing with another cast in a

neighboring Village like it to the

extent that's true of nowhere else in

the world and they were able to find

this in India where the amount of um

social stratification you can see that

in the

genetic catalog over the last thousands

of years for thousands of years these

two neighboring casts haven't mixed um

with like 99% or something which is like

even from sort of infidelity or rape or

something you uh you would expect there

to be more than what actually ends up

being the case so you can understand

modern culture in India B Bas on what

has happened over the last few years

that's really interesting so I wanted

like I feel like you're doing like such

a good job of summarizing his main ideas

um but I kind of wanted I kind of want

you to do the same thing with with

Claude so we can see how see how you

stack up versus Claude because obviously

you you've you've you've input his his

book into into this project so it has it

has that as ref as reference material

can we ask it to just like summarize

like a few of his main ideas that's a

great idea can you summarize

and maybe like the techniques he used to

come up

with with his perfect so what you're

writing is can you summarize the main

ideas from the book and the techniques

you used to come up with new insights

cool and one thing that's like really

cool about this is like you've been able

to do something like this with Chach for

a long time but Chach PT's context

window isn't that long and

so it chops it up um and like it's not

going to it's not going to really be

able to summarize the entire thing

because of that you know it has to like

find the right parts of the parts of the

book and the embedding search in it is

not very good and all that kind of stuff

and Claude you can just like throw us

throw a ton of stuff in the context

window and that just like makes a big

difference um okay so it looks like it

looks like we've got some some uh ANS it

tells us that the ancient DNA is

revolutionized understanding of human

prehistory um and then we we've learned

that populations today are the result of

multiple waves of migration mixture uh

um and then you know just like a bunch

of other genetic stuff um then it talks

about the key techniques about hon

sequencing and how they've enabled these

sorts of new new discoveries they've

been making

um yeah yeah but but any anyway just a

bunch of interesting things uh about uh

their research well now I'm interested

in like okay so the key techniques that

is using are whole genome sequencing of

ancient DNA samples so is old genome

sequencing like a a a new thing that you

can do it on Ancient DNA samples so it's

saying like by improved extraction and

sequencing Technologies is that that's

like that is an interesting question so

we can even ask lot because I'm not sure

um how uh how exactly do

you sequence an

ancient um or you know pre a

prehistoric uh genome

like can you do like what what how does

that work

right okay so they grind the bone and

they have then techniques to get the DNA

out of that now another thing we can ask

is like um one thing I'm curious about

let's see uh I don't really remember the

chapter on

um Native American so I could ask about

uh what exactly happened with Native am

here's one thing I'm curious about like

um how would okay so I don't even know

if DED re addresses this himself but

like

how would David reich's

theories help

explain why

civilization

suddenly um

emerges so

rapidly and that

to um

concurrently in the new and the old

world after 10,000 BC aka the end of the

last I

Ag and then I maybe I'll just like ask

Claude why I think this is interesting

question so like this seems like a

really remarkable coincidence given how

long humans have been around you

know that is interesting well

coincidence given that human it correct

my spelling given that

humans um have been around for hundreds

of thousands of

years I didn't realize it that we

believe that it emerged like at the same

time in different in geographically

disperate places that's totally new to

me I thought it I thought it was like

just in mesia it's actually there's a

really good book by um Peter Jackson

called The Great Divide and it's one of

the most interesting books I read just

as a side note it's about yeah it's

comparing the emergence of civilization

in the New World versus the old world so

so in the Old World um uh in sorry in

the new world the um Coral is like

civilization in 3,000 BC and it's based

on fishing and um not on like

conventional agriculture like

Mesopotamia and he talks about how that

changed the evolution of the culture in

the New World versus the old world but

anyways um uh that's really interesting

okay so major population movements and

uh

mixtures exchange of ideas

um so it says maybe there were genetic

adaptations during that

time um there were no major biological

changes so he's saying that I guess

human population like yeah we were like

a different kind of human after the Ice

Age um so work sure common answer to

that loan maybe I'll tell it like be

more specific I I still loaned your

answer doesn't help me explain your

answer doesn't help me

understand why the of the last ice

age led to all led to

civilization what changed from

before and you this is really helpful to

interrogate uh llms in this way because

their initial Instinct maybe because of

rhf is to be sort of summarizing mode

and comprehensive and like I know just

like give me the answer you know

umh totally okay so maybe climat

stabilization it like uh increase food

sources population growth okay

interesting um yeah so this is super

interesting Claude didn't really give me

a sort of full answer but this is here's

why this is still super useful because

now that I know Claud doesn't have a

good answer this makes it all the more

interesting for me to ask David Reich

because otherwise if it just like given

me the right answer I'm like oh okay

this is like a known thing I'm not going

to waste his time with this right now

that I know it's not really clear now

it's going to be such a fun conversation

with um David Reich yeah and and you

sort of know it's not in his book

because you've like asked the whole book

uh which is which is pretty cool this

okay so here's here's what I kind of

want to do I want to see if um it it is

good enough at picking up patterns in

how you ask questions that it can um

help you come up with questions that you

think are actually pretty good for for

for David Reich and I don't know if it's

going to work um are you are you down to

try yeah yeah that's a great idea let's

do it okay so basically who have you

interviewed recently is that is sort of

like in the same vein as David Reich

like the same kind of person I think the

closest would be Tyler in the sense of

like a more sort of polymathic less

techn uh less like AI focused so if I

look up Tyler Cowen

questions what about like any anybody

that like it specifically deals with

like genetics or like um sort of

population changes is do you think Tyler

like you you covered that in your

interview oh not at all but I I just

haven't interviewed somebody about that

um you okay so that's new so okay so and

so Tyler's good then I mean I I think I

think Tyler's a good enough uh like

broad enough range of has a broad enough

range of of ideas that that probably

work cool okay let me pull up the

questions okay so here are the questions

I asked Tyler when I had him on the

podcast and you know it's like about

basically all these different economists

so I've read you know K's theory of

Interest money and employment I read WR

A Smith I read like hyx all all of hyx

essays and I this was actually a super

interesting interview um um and you know

I was like asking about the

contradictions between Hayek and K

anyway so I think this will be a sort of

and Mill obviously um um so this will be

a super like hopefully it'll get what

kind of thing I'm doing trying to do if

I add this to CLA so we go back to

prep um and then I add content upload

from device or sorry I guess I just to

add

text um

Tyler

questions did that

work sweet so one thing that I want to

do first with this is like can you just

ask it like given all the questions you

asked for Tyler count like just ask it

to pull out the patterns in how you like

to ask questions and how you like to

conduct interviews um do that first I'm

the host of a

podcast right

I want you to find the P maybe I don't

want to like prompt it with self

congratulation uh of a

podcast um I want you to find the

patterns in my

questions um here's uh

questions from an interview of The

Economist

Tyler

Cowen um one thing I like to add to

these is like um the like the results

you give me should be so detailed that

another AI who is

impersonating uh can can follow your

output to generate um questions like

this for a new guest

that's a great prompt yeah there's

patterns you give me

to generate

questions for a completely different

guest

different nice okay I like that

yep so read them out it says you often

ask about comparisons between different

kinds of thinkers you pose what if

questions um you ask how historical

economic theories might apply to current

issues uh you present counterarguments

and alternative viewpoints to test the

strength of theories you draw

connections between economics and other

fields okay so maybe I'll just ask it

like I don't always interview economists

um maybe you should add a couple more

trans here some other examples

yeah yeah find patterns that are not

domain

specific so let's go do

Demis oh

shoot okay then we can do um Dylan

sweet H it's all

right so it's telling me like um I I

feel like it's

over um it's being like specific to the

kinds of interviews I've done because

it's asking about like timelines which I

asked Deus about or technical

bottlenecks resource allocation industry

Dynamics I feel like that's more about

what I asked ly about with

semiconductors um yeah I'm not sure how

good this was uh but we can try it so H

what if we uh yeah yeah yeah what if we

what if we um said I'm going to I'm now

going to interview a geneticist um he's

a geneticist right um can you write a

guide like for another AI to prepare

questions um

um basically what I what I want it to do

is like write the guide specifically for

interviewing a geneticist based on the

patterns in your um in your previous

question see if I can do that

[Laughter]

yeah this is much better agree with

promt yeah okay so it's about

um uh

adaptability um fundamental concepts

future predictions comparative analysis

all right sure well you know what let's

just try it um so let's put this in

let's put this in

yeah we lot a lot of

different um was we had yeah okay so we

just go back to the if you just

go help me come up with questions oh

yeah

cool with

questions I might actually start it

start a new one and just be like maybe

I'll delete this so it's not over biased

to that

or you let's keep it maybe just like uh

maybe learn some context

okay oh yeah it'll have examples it'll

have examples that's good examples are

good

questions for David

Reich based on these

guidelines um that another AI

generated from

other question

list and then um maybe you can also

reference yeah you could tell to also I

was going to say you could also tell to

reference Tyler Cen as an example but

maybe one thing I'll point out that

that's been sort of a a big part of my

um I've like noticed is that there's a

big hesit like writing these prompts and

reminding the AI like here's who I am

here's why I care about this here's the

larger purpose of this project it just

ends up being a sort of big

um big uh big sludge and that's often

what keeps me from using AI tools that I

know would increase my productivity

because I'm just like I don't want to

retype here's you're an AI and you're

trying to help me come with questions

I'm interviewing blah blah blah and like

write this as you would write to another

AI so um I hopefully in the future we

get models that just like know all this

about you and like you don't even need

to remind them because they would have

just been listening to this call and

they know what we're trying to do right

um but in the meantime I just think it's

like a just like don't be lazy and just

like do the do the promp thing um yeah

yeah I mean I think that the cat gbt

memory feature is like kind of getting

there to some degree I think like Cloud

projects you like it it it contains

custom instructions from one chat to

another so that's kind of nice but yeah

I agree I mean it's there's a lot of

typing to do but what do you think of

the of the output from okay so let's see

so it's ask about uh it asks given the

rapid advancements in ancient DNA

sequencing what breaks do you

anticipate um how do your methods for

analyzing ancient DNA differ from those

used in contemporary genetic samples

what are the current so I one thing I'm

noticing is that um they're very generic

questions and that's kind of what makes

it not that useful for me is like just

come up with questions for me because I

try to ask um more specific like

here's it's a more of like after having

read this passage and like considering

the research in this area here are some

thoughts I have like the 10,000 year BC

thing was a perfect example of this of

okay we know that Civilization emerge

rapidly like what was going on there

right it's a very specific question and

I don't think that if you just in

generally these things just don't aren't

that good at like come up with the

specific thing from a large context it

like really wants to you know do a

summary level or high level kind of um

uh uh uh questions right I I think

you're totally right I think this is

like a sort of common failure mode with

um with using AI tools is like people

end up having they're like okay maybe

can do my entire job for me and then

it's like no it's like too high level

and it doesn't it doesn't really work

cuz like ultimately these questions are

about what's interesting to you and it

doesn't have enough context on you to

like know what you are specifically

going to be interested in just from the

patterns in previous guests especially

especially if you don't have guests that

um cover the same sorts of topics like I

think if you had like five other

interviews with other geneticists it

might it might do a little bit of a

better job um and I think like usually

the solve for that is like like backing

up and thinking about what are the like

different microtasks that I do as part

of getting to those questions um uh that

this could be helpful for so like

instead of just doing the whole thing

all at once it's like backing up to like

the the the the particular context that

I'm interested in currently like what

are the microtasks that I could I could

replace for example the things we're

doing with like research is pretty

helpful because then you can narrow down

on like I want to research X um but not

like completing the job yeah totally

yeah um so you still have a job we've

we've we've determined that that as as

far as Claude 3.5 Sonic goes uh not

replacing d cash yet um I before I

before I let you go I have a couple I

have a couple other questions for

you uh really quick I mean I have to ask

you what your timelines are uh if you

have any updated timeline but by the way

before we do that should I show um so

I've been uh working on com coming this

like the research but also in post-

production there's a ton of like we got

to find the Clips in this interview or

whatever right so please yeah yeah I

forgot about that let's go for that um

Claude 3.5 Sonet good for research not

going to not going to replace you but

you are also using um AI uh not just for

for reading not just for research but

also for like helping you uh sort of in

the post- production process of like

putting um putting episodes out there

you want to tell us about that yep

totally so um obviously there's a bunch

of things that go into the post uction

of the episode which I've been trying to

come up with workflows to help AI help

me out with um we uh before I started

having a human make transcripts of the

podcast and before I had ads to help me

subsidize that um what I would do is I

would have a text to speech or speech to

text assembly AI is the API we use or I

use um have it come up with the

transcript uh a first dve transcript and

then I have um I have gp4 just literally

it says prompt transcript I came up with

a a couple methods to do this and it

just says like um so you're and then I

came up with some guidelines so that

like here's some uh prompts to make sure

that when you rewrite the transcript

you're removing filler words you're

remove you're making the thing more

readable you're cleaning it up and it

actually worked decently well but it

just wasn't good enough that it beat out

a human yet so and then it just like

worth it for me to just have a human do

it uh but other things we're doing is

we're I'm trying to come up with a

workflow where I can just upload the MP3

of the episode and the transcript it

makes an autogena transcript and from

that transcript we can just have it come

up and generate um different ideas for

titles and clips and highlights and it's

a work in progress right now um but you

know we just do a sort of uh few shot

learning in the prompt of like here's

what good titles look like here's what

good Clips look like and this is just a

sample two minute a random interview but

like um we're trying to I'm trying to

like figure out ways to do get this kind

of workflow going that's that's really

great and uh and the reason I think it's

great is because we actually built this

too at every and we use it all the time

and then we just like released it as a

uh as an app um have you have I shown

you spiral so if you go to spiral. Compu

so basically we just built that into an

into an app where you can create these

things called spiral where spirals are

like basically F shot prompts for

repetitive creative tasks that you do so

like for me when I do this podcast I

always have to come up with a tweet for

it and this just I just do I put in some

few shot examples um it creates a little

style guide for itself and then you get

a form that you can share with your team

um or just use yourself or share

publicly and then every time you have a

new podcast you just paste it in there

it can pull out tweets it can do um it

can do transcripts it can do um like

highlights and all that kind of stuff in

your style and in your voice using using

the few shot stuff it's it's actually

it's it works really well I use it a ton

internally and it's going kind of viral

like we're we're about to pass 3,000

signups for it it's been like a couple

weeks

um so I would love you should yeah can I

say custom um prompts like I want to

generate a tweet using these guidelines

or something like that yes you can okay

I would love to use this okay cool you

should use it um uh like I'll hook you

up with an account after this you in

fact you we to edit out this stuff I was

thinking about my janky workflow

cuz it's like I'm trying to describe to

Steve Jobs like you know I have this

like little device and I'm trying to

like it can I can open up different

open up my cell

phone oh I love it um anyway we we'll

hook you we'll hook you up with a we'll

hook you with the license and uh I would

love to see what you think of it um I

think I think it's just like a problem

that all sort of creatives face is like

there's there's all this like like kind

of drudgery of creative work that's like

not about the core thing that you're

doing and it's like CL Claude like just

got to this place where it can like um

where it can like uh uh do a lot of that

and it's like yeah I just needed a for I

just needed a little Builder thing and I

it sounds like you have you had the same

problem it's like I don't want to prompt

it every time exactly yeah I'm so

excited to use this thanks no yeah I'm

just yeah I'm actually I'm going to

experiment with it later today and it

would save me so many hours per

production of an episode to have this

kind of stuff because you just like it's

hard to overestimate how much time these

kinds of things take as I'm sure you

know totally totally I do uh I I love I

love to hear that let me know let me

know if you have any feedback um so

before I let you go uh I have to ask you

a couple a couple important questions um

so what what are your AGI timelines um

if I I would give like a 25th percentile

to 7 75th percentile sort of um uh

bounds and I would also say what do we

mean by AGI it's like not just set it's

productive or can generate trillions of

dollars of value but really it's uh you

can replace a remote worker any your

remote worker you can just replace with

AGI for that I'd say like 25th

percentile maybe

2029 and then 75th percentile like

2050 okay interesting and then what

about P Doom it's hard

to yeah as far as definitions go so

something along the lines of like the

thing that's taken over doesn't really

have any sentient experience and it just

like doesn't have culture doesn't have

individuality doesn't really um it's not

just that humans are disempowered right

because I think like humans disempowered

chimps and I think we didn't Doom the

Universe I think

like it just has to be like some the

paper Clipper that uh and what is the a

of a like something like that I don't

know 10% or something like that I it

just like things got to go really wrong

um that that makes sense um that

actually uh that's I can't I can't

decide whether that's higher than I than

I thought it would be or lower than I

thought I think it's higher than I

thought it would be that's like kind of

I think it is like fair to be like

that's crazy you know like 10% odds that

everything we care about is going to not

exist in the far future um I think

that's like the right reaction to that

honestly um because often it's easy to

Bandy about these numbers as

abstractions or like I don't know what

are the odds of Patriots will wi or

something and no we're really talking

about technology that will be alive in

our lifetimes um and might result in

something really bad and it's we're

taking that seriously yeah um so I

really appreciate you coming on for

anyone who has been listening to this

and does not know you yet and wants to

find out more where should they find you

I have a podcast called the dores

podcast um available YouTube Spotify

Apple podcast wherever and if you want

to there's also the newsletter as you

saw hopefully thanks to Dan prodding

I'll be doing more writing and um that

is at thash patel.com as for um and then

you can also follow follow me on Twitter

or something so that's

dworp or just look up dkash Patel on

Twitter amazing thank you so much this

is awesome thanks so much for having me

on Dan that was that was super fun to go

through that workflow and also get your

tips on how to you know use these tools

better I'm actually pretty excited for

people to see how um yeah how these

tools have been useful in my workflow so

this I'm excited for this to be out

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